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New A8 Game Released - Curse of the lost Miner


baktra

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You can do the bottom right and get back up nicely. I found the bottom left one trickier as I was hopping over rather than falling on it as you did. This is what's nice about the controls you do have a lot of options! The diamond I mentioned was 2 left from the top of the big ladder ;)

 

You could always leave the game as (for those wanting a challenge) and make another set of easier caves based on these (small edits on some of the tricky bits) for another 'easy' edition just an idea :)

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Hello baktra,

 

Practically this would mean if the player pushes the joystick diagonal - which is very often the case during hectic gameplay - the program logic does not see a side movement. This would reflect my gaming experience.

 

 

Hello,

I am attaching a version with modified controls. The top diagonals are accepted. Give it a try.

culomin.xex

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I have prototype #002 for 5200. It should handle keypad input. 0 - Commit suicide, * - Return to the main menu. Still no sound or music.

If the "diags" refer to diagonals, those should be working too in prototype #002 for the normal movement. The axes are evaluated independently now.

 

I have a question however. Controller inertia zone is 1/3 of the potentiometer range.

Is it too much or not for a game originally designed for digital joystick?

 

 

culomin5200.cart.tar.gz

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Hi Baktra,

 

On my 4-port 5200 using the Atarimax Ultimate SD I get the title screen but I cannot start the game with the trigger and I do not see any key codes displayed.

 

I saw it was setting CONSOL ($C01F) to $00 - it should set it to $04 to enable the pots in the controller (bit 2 enables the pots, bits 0..1 select which keypad is active). I used a hex editor to change the $00 to $04 and I can now start and play the game.

 

At the title screen I now see key codes for some of the keys. Looking at the deferred keyboard routine I see it reads KBCODE and then masks off the top nibble - it needs to be shifted right first as only bits 1..4 are valid. In fact when the deferred routine is called the accumulator already contains the "keypad code" although this is slightly different to the KBCODE bits - they are listed in Claus' document:

 

http://www.atarimuseum.com/videogames/consoles/5200/conv_to_5200.html

 

Under KBCODE the "bits" are bits 1..4 of KBCODE, the "Keypad code" is the value the BIOS will pass to the deferred routine at $20A.

 

You are making good progress on the port, this is always the trickiest part!

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Yet another 5200 prototype. This time #003 and with source code.

  • Cartridge file has .bin extension
  • GTIA consol register poked with $04 to both select controller #1 and enable POTs
  • Fixed reading of the keypad using the continuation vector pointed from $020A. It is still not perfect, but it is enough to allow the player to commit suicide or return to the main menu.
  • The suicide/return to menu controls match what is written in the training screen.

I have checked the phobos port for joystick dead zone to realize that I have almost the same.

 

Features to go

  • Audio - Porting RMT player
  • Fix PAL/NTSC woes - either detect PAL/NTSC by examining GTIA register if possible, or change compilation script to generate two cartridge images (one for PAL, other for NTSC). Correctly set PAL compatibility byte at $BFE7.

culomin5200_proto003.tar.gz

Edited by baktra
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I tested 003 and noticed a very minor issue related to the joysticks. They do not automatically return to the centre position so it is easy to leave them engaged. If you do this on your final life, when you return to the title screen (after pressing fire) none of the controls work until you centre the joystick.

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I tested 003 and noticed a very minor issue related to the joysticks. They do not automatically return to the centre position so it is easy to leave them engaged. If you do this on your final life, when you return to the title screen (after pressing fire) none of the controls work until you centre the joystick.

Thank you very much for testing. That behavior is intentional. The purpose is to 'clean up' the controls before the title screen is re-entered in order to prevent inadvertent cave/speed changes. I will consider restricting the cleanup to the fire button.

 

As the game engine appears to be working fine, I will proceed to a release candidate with audio, all caves, and game speed constants tuned for NTSC.

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I'm liking this game... a lot! Beaten the first 3 caves. The problem seems to be the speed when falling - you (usually) want to move across one space and can easily overshoot - this is costing me most of the lives. The screen designs are good and devious!

 

edit:

Completed the first 6 caves. Despite the controls being twitchy when dropping you definately have the "one more go factor" here :thumbsup:

 

Not sure if this is intentional but you can hold fire in and jump in mid air / break your fall.

 

Possibly if you limited the fall to one square across unless you released the stick and held it again it might improve things?

 

Only 7 caves to go :)

Edited by therealbountybob
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I have a release candidate #01 of the 5200 version. Changes since prototype 003 are the following:

  • Sound effects and music
  • Timing and movement speed adjusted to the NTSC nature of the console
  • Colors changed to closely match PAL colors of the Atari 800 XL version
  • Cleanup of the controls before main menu is restricted to the FIRE button
  • Cartridge size increased to 32 KB.
  • All caves available

 

 

culomin5200_rc1.tar.gz

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I'm liking this game... a lot! Beaten the first 3 caves. The problem seems to be the speed when falling - you (usually) want to move across one space and can easily overshoot - this is costing me most of the lives. The screen designs are good and devious!

 

edit:

Completed the first 6 caves. Despite the controls being twitchy when dropping you definately have the "one more go factor" here :thumbsup:

 

Not sure if this is intentional but you can hold fire in and jump in mid air / break your fall.

 

Possibly if you limited the fall to one square across unless you released the stick and held it again it might improve things?

 

Only 7 caves to go :)

 

 

The jump in the mid-air... Isn't it just only when you are seemingly two squares above ground? If so, this is just a visual glitch, but the physics is handled correctly. I never managed to make jump in the mid-air. One example could be high jumps repeated over and over.

 

Steering during the fall is limited to left once and right once. I think the problem occurs when you hit the ground and inadvertently keep moving in a particular direction. I can have a look and try to adjust.

 

Edit: I attach version with "Landlocked" controls. If you move in any direction during the fall, you must center the stick before you can move to the left or to the right on the ground.

culomin_alt_ctrl_landlock.xex

Edited by baktra
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Thanks will try that out. The game is very much a mixture of platform planning and reactions/trying to move mid fall.

 

I had a very long session today (real hardware), mental block on Cave 4 but after that got through to 8 boy is that tricky, then I thought I'd try and complete the game but got stuck on Cave 10, just how do you get the bottom right diamond / access the big ladder / top right of the screen? I tried repeatedly but had to give up :-o

post-19705-0-60083300-1431198196_thumb.jpg

 

There was a lot of Cursing as I repeatedly failed on level 8 so the game is well named! Not quite the hardest platformer on the A8, that is securely held by "Pondering about Max's" but I think you are #2 :-D

 

p.s. minor thing you might want to turn off the pmg before switching screens to avoid the small flicker/flash.

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Hello,

 

This cave was originally named "The Pitfalls" and comes from the prequel. In CUTLM, it just flipped horizontally.

 

You are almost there. If the miner is positioned exactly as in the picture above, just perform long jump to the right, pick up the diamond and then perform another long jump to the right to get to the long ladder. Before reaching the position in the picture, you should have collected all diamonds in the main area of the cave (that is relatively simple, except the fall at the very beginning. Just fall wisely).

 

>p.s. minor thing you might want to turn off the pmg before switching screens to avoid the small flicker/flash.

Thank you for pointing it out, but I will place it to the WONTFIX category this time. Sorry.

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Reset and pause support and the 5200 port is pretty much perfect

 

The more features added, the more demands from the customers and users ;-). But it is much better than silence.

 

I assume that after pressing the PAUSE button, the game should freeze, until the button is pressed again.

As for the RESET, it should return to main menu, as the asterisk key does now, right?

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Let us end this Atari adventure.

I have released updated versions on the game web page: http://www.baktra.wz.cz/software/culomin.html

 

Atari 5200

  • PAUSE and RESET supported as described above. When the game is paused, the cave is not shown.
  • I left the Atari Logo screen as it is.

 

Atari 800XL

  • Changed to "normal" versioning scheme. The game displays "v1.3" now.

 

Both versions

  • When the miner lands after a fall with move to either side, the control delay is extended to better protect against unintentional moves after landing. My testing showed that forcing the player to center the stick is too restrictive and results in non-smooth gameplay.
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